


The Choice

by illyriantremors



Series: Shadowsinger: An Azriel/Moriel Fic [6]
Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Anger, Angst, F/M, Fighting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-17
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-08-15 11:25:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8054443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illyriantremors/pseuds/illyriantremors
Summary: Azriel comes home from the Hewn City with Rhysand and discovers that Mor and Cassian slept together, leaving Azriel heartbroken and angry. Fighting and angst among the Squad ensues.





	The Choice

**Author's Note:**

> I think it's sort of implied in the books that Rhysand finds out about Mor and Cassian first before Azriel gets back or finds out or whatever, but in this fic they find out together so that everyone can have one big miserable angst fest. Enjoy!

_Sometimes I wish I was smart. I wish I made cures for how people are. I wish I had power. I wish I could give. I wish I could change the world for you and me. Cause' I feel so mad. I feel so angry. Feel so callused, so lost confused again. Feel so cheap, so used unfaithful. Let’s start over. Let’s start over._

\- Boxcar Racer

* * *

I understood right away all of Morrigan’s misgivings about growing up in the Hewn City. The mountain was menacing in its own right, but stepping inside felt like walking into your own crypt before you even knew you were dead. If it hadn’t been for my own cell that had locked me up for eleven long years, I would never have been able to imagine what it must have been like for Morrigan to have spent her childhood feeling this way and what was worse, thinking she’d never make it out.

The city was carved out of the rock and stone, dark and depressing. The shadows bound tightly to me as if to say even they did not enjoy this kind of darkness. Though they stuck close, they brought whispers in and out of my ears of the smattering around us: petty thefts between crooks; torrid affairs in dark corners; secrets and lies all around.

Rhysand managed to look right at home, tight control over a mask he had already begun to master. It unnerved me to see him this way. But his hands were in his pockets where I knew he liked them best when he was nervous or otherwise generally uncomfortable. It made me sick to think he might have to rule over this court regularly some day.

And then _he_ approached.

 _Lies. Cheat. Selfish. Coward. Greedy…_ A million details spun a web inside my mind for me to follow, but the insect ensnared in the framework most boldly for me to see cut a dagger to my heart - _DEATH_.

The word pounded into me as the shadows murmured it over and over, a warning.

“Azriel, meet Keir,” Rhys said. “Keeper of this blasted hell-hole.”

The eyes of Morrigan’s father slid to me beholding the shadows and widening with something like lust. “A shadowsinger,” he said sluggishly. I could taste the power hungry urges dripping off his tongue. The shadows shuddered and warned me to step back. “How interesting.”

And just like that, the anger boiled up inside of me. I was grateful Rhysand’s mother took over the conversation, keeping me from Keir the rest of the trip. Thank the Mother we were only staying one night.

Each moment spent in his presence felt like a waste. All I could think about was how his life dwindled down to this wretched city of abuse and torment when such a wondrous gift as Morrigan had been lain at his feet freely and he ignored her for something far more valuable.

I thought of little else than Morrigan under the mountain and wondered if perhaps that was part of the city’s power, to tear a person down to their basest form and expose the ugliest parts of them. Keir was within near-constant reach. It would have been so easy to pull the blade from my back, press it ever so slightly against his neck until suddenly it wasn’t soft anymore, and to make him understand what a monstrosity he was for making his beautiful golden daughter hide her light.

How easy it would have been to let the blade simply…

_...ssssslip._

In my inability to let my body slacken and reveal how furious I’d become, my insides fell apart instead, my heart wrenching with guilt and disgust over how low my impulses were. These were the moments in which I still shuddered at the shadows, when they whispered such furious things in the dark that took me back to my cell, made me think the worst of myself with their subtle suggestions of what I might do. To think that I was even capable - _no_.

I was no better than Keir to be thinking about harming him in such a foul way. And yet each time I decided I was worthless, Morrigan’s smile would appear in my mind, that insatiable appetite for life and love glowing in her eyes, and I would tell myself that though I could never be worthy, I’d have to at least try or else what was the point of wishing her free?

The night passed agonizingly slow and I was overjoyed to be leaving the next day. Rhys was glad of it too. Though I said little to him during our stay, we exchanged looks of relief the moment we stepped out of the doors to the city and inhaled that glorious crisp air of the skies.

We chose to fly back to the Illyrian camps preferring the wind at our backs over the quick buzz of winnowing. In two days, Morrigan would be leaving. I didn’t want to think about it, her going back to that mountain and possibly something even worse shortly after, so I chose to focus instead on savoring the last few hours I had with her.

It was just after the earliest hours of the morning when we reached the camps having wanted to break away from the Hewn City as early as possible. Rhysand’s mother let us into the cabin we shared and at once we were greeted with Cassian sitting at the table sleepily pushing some burnt toast around on his plate.

“You’re up early, sunshine,” Rhys chirped, gliding towards the kitchen to steal some food for himself. Tendrils of darkness floated off his being in the relaxation of being home.

_Thief…_

A small probing voice tickled my ear, making me look up, but all I saw was Cassian.

He’d stopped eating to stare at us, for once a pained expression on his face. There was no trace of ease nor snarky comment ready to roll of his tongue. Even his body language sulked with his shoulders hunched slightly forward as if he were… nervous.

His gaze found me before darting to Rhys and I could hear him swallow the bile in his mouth, but I didn’t understand what it meant.

“Cassian,” Rhysand’s mother said, stepping up to him and rubbing a hand over his cheek. Immediately, he pushed her away, something I’d never seen him do in ten years, and shot up out of his chair.

“I can’t,” he said moving to the door and suddenly stopping. I had to jump out of the way. He turned and found the High Lord’s son with a glass container of orange juice midway to his lips. Cassian took a deep breathe before stuttering, “I - Rhys.”

 _Thief_....

My brows furrowed, my concern deeping. This wasn’t like Cassian to be so unhinged and the voices were agitated as they spoke, anxious that I should hear what he had to say. But how it would make him a thief? I had no idea.

The way he looked at Rhysand as if his world might fall apart was terrifying. Cassian was bold. Cassian was fearless. He didn’t get scared, not with _us_. This was blood and family, unbreakable. But his fingers twitched in agitation at his sides, the crease on his forehead bunching together in consternation. Then there was the line of sweat tracing the edge of his hairline sending the first little bead dripping down the side of his face. His chest went up and down with each breathe visibly wooing the room into silence as we waited. I took in a dozen details of him at once - the dilated pupils poised for a fight, the shaking, the way he couldn’t quite look Rhysand square in the eye…

All of it told me that our bond was very much about to break.

Just when the greatest Illyrian fighter to ever walk the earth looked as though he might pass out from fright and _lose_ something for once in his life, Morrigan tip-toed down the hall and spoke in a light voice that turned his face beat red. “Cassian?” she asked, her voice small and pale. _Nervous_ , like he was, I thought.

That’s when I smelt it. All over her. His scent clinging to her pores and burrowing deep beneath the surface of her skin, deep, deep, deep inside of-

I chanced a glance at her over Cassian’s shoulder and my heart didn’t want to believe what my mind saw and the shadows confirmed. Her golden locks were a disarray of tangles over a lopsided shirt - _Cassian’s_ shirt - and her legs were bare save for a skinny piece of fabric over her hips that wrapped between her thighs and crotch with pale pink lace.

_THIEF_

My mouth fell open. It was the only move my body would allow me to make. I stared at her and it felt like my insides were going to explode from the pain. My mind scattered not knowing where to start or who I could run to anymore. All I knew was that she had chosen him and no matter what I thought of our mornings together, she had chosen him, and no matter who I was or could never be, she had chosen him, and now her life would be at risk because of it and she had chosen him, and she was leaving and could only take one of us with her in her heart to suffer with her in the Autumn Court and she had chosen _him_.

I had never hated Cassian. It was a stretch to say that I even hated my own miserable family who failed to raise me. Hate was a strong word a young, naive boy trapped inside of me reserved only for the irredeemable who were few and far between.

But just then, right in that moment, I hated Cassian with every selfish fiber of my being and I knew from the way Morrigan was looking at me with her lips trembling and her brows furrowed apologetically - sorry that I wasn’t good enough for her - that it didn’t matter, wasn’t enough. _I_ wasn’t enough.

And now Morrigan would have to go back to the Hewn City with the only value her family saw in her ripped to shreds. Her body - I… didn’t want to think what they might take from her. How far would they go? How high would the price be? Morrigan had told me awful things about her father. It made me sick to consider what he might do - lock her up, torture her all because of Cassian.

My brother. My friend. He did this to her, put her at such enormous risk.

“Azriel,” Morrigan started to say, but the shadows swooped in and shut her out.

A deep hollow madness filled my soul. It wanted to scream with the agony of what Cassian had done to Morrigan as much as for the dreams I’d built up in Morrigan crumbling apart. I was an idiot for thinking anything with her was possible. We’d only known each other for _two weeks..._

But the shadows circled in tight screaming at me even as I wanted to rage. I thought they were trying to protect me from my own self, but then one gripped my mind and passed over my eyes filtering my vision with blackness and my focus honed.

_BEHIND_

A crack so vicious it broke time sounded, pulling me out of my stupor. All eyes turned to Rhysand standing amid a pile of shattered glass and orange juice at his feet. The tendrils of darkness that had been floating off him in a smooth cascade only minutes ago were now abundantly flowing in dark violet waves.

And his eyes. Cauldron, his eyes were dark and vicious, the whites of them nearly non-existent as they drowned in a sea of rage. There was so much power built up inside of him. We had all known it, but for the first time I feared what it might do if left unchecked.

“Rhysand,” his mother said softly, but not without warning edging her tone.

“You,” Rhysand said ignoring his mother, all of that High Lord’s power focused right in on Cassian. His voice was the blackest night, sharp as the glass shards at his feet. “You. Slept. With. Her.”

Cassian swallowed and held up his hands. “Brother,” he said, eliciting a vicious snarl from Rhysand. “We didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Didn’t. Do. Anything. Wrong?” he asked with deadly calm.

Morrigan suddenly bolted out of the hallway to step in front of Cassian and the air caught her scent as she passed me to get to him. She reeked of sex. “It was my choice!” she said, already near tears, knowing precisely why Rhysand was upset, as if she’d known this was coming even before she’d taken Cassian to bed. “I wanted to _choose_. I couldn’t go back there knowing - knowing my freedom would be gone forever.”

 _“Do you know what they will do to you now, Morrigan?!”_ Rhys bellowed. He darted forward stepping on several shards of glass until his feet bled and he didn’t so much as flinch. “What kind of choices do you think you’ll have _now?_ Now that you’ve given yourself away to another.” The tears that had been threatening spilled over onto Morrigan’s flushed cheeks. Her eyes sank considering her cousin, realizing the awful truth now settling over her.

“You would have to go back no matter what,” Rhysand continued and he sounded pained to admit it as his body took on a certain wildness I’d never seen in him before. “Did you think we could keep you here forever? Did you think you wouldn’t have to hold up your engagement if you slept with some Illyrian half-breed!”

“Rhysand,” his mother said sharply, but he cut her off again.

“That’s all he - we - any of us are to them! Your father will slaughter us for this and he’ll do even worse to you. Morrigan…” A sob burst in his throat like he might cry. “What he’ll do to you - No, what _they’ll_ do to you. Oh Morrigan, did you not think there would be consequences?”

“Damn the consequences!” Morrigan spat, nearly hysterical. Her body shook and despite it all, I wanted nothing more than to hold her and quiet the storm any way that I could. “I can survive them whatever they are.”

And then in a move that surprised us all, Morrigan strode up to the High Lord’s son like a lioness chasing down her next meal, as if Rhysand hadn’t just been shouting at her with blood pooling at his feet from where he stepped on the glass. Their faces were less than an inch apart and when she spoke, she found her confident, eternally optimistic self again through every tear. “I am _stronger_ than they are,” she declared.

“Morrigan,” Rhysand whispered. There was so much pity in his voice. “They’re going to _kill_ you…” And all at once in the stillness that followed, every pair of eyes in the room save for Morrigan’s turned and found Cassian. Because somehow, it was his fault.

All his fault.

A crack split open inside of me, one I thought I had managed to seal up a long, long time ago after many years of healing and struggle. And when it split, it didn’t just fray at the seams. It tore with a vengeance until the fabric had burst open and a wide, bottomless chasm in my heart was exposed.

Morrigan could _die_ for this. I had feared what her family might do, but never death. They wouldn’t - _couldn’t_.

The bitter storm of emotions raging beneath my skin, churning my blood was quickly becoming too much for me to remain still, but I had to keep it all in, couldn’t let it out: jealousy, anger, heartache, and murderous, murderous power swelled and it was too much. Morrigan could be with whomever she wanted even if her choice might have broken my heart. It was her decision to make, as it rightfully should be, and I would respect it always no matter what it was.

Because two weeks. Two weeks was all we’d had and it didn’t matter that it would be but the blink of an eye in the span of what our lifetimes would become because two weeks had been enough for every single cell pumping away in my chest to belong entirely to her. And because Cassian had _touched_ her, her life might be forfeit for it.

I thought of everything we had faced in the last ten years from the cruel brutality of the Illyrian camps, Lord Devlon’s constant doubting of our capabilities as bastards and half-breeds, to the cold unforgiving Blood Rite, only to have it all betrayed in a single night by sex.

My soul emptied out. Morrigan. Cassian. My brotherhood, gone in a flash. And the worst part of it all was that even as Cassian had put someone as pure and noble as Morrigan in such terrible danger, I could tell from the moment he darted out of his chair away from Rhysand’s mother that he regretted everything. He knew exactly what he’d done and the remorse was already beginning to eat him alive. I wanted to flay him for taking Morrigan to his bed, but he was my friend and it damned me to hell to see him fuck up like this when I knew the lionheart beating away inside his chest.

Cassian’s betrayal of our brotherhood was an unsung song of sorrow in this battle that bloomed pitifully in my chest to quell the sea of anger consuming my blood. The wrath remained, but even stronger was the despair it left in its wake.

Everything happened next very quickly and all at once, but I saw it in my head as if in slow motion.

First, Morrigan broke. Her body crumpled over on itself and the sob that heaved from her chest detonated the trigger of wrath within her cousin.

The shadows flared to life. _MOVE_ they said and I lunged for Morrigan to grab her as she fell and Rhysand threw himself at Cassian, his wings fully erect and - _fuck me_ if those weren’t _talons_ ripping from his hands and feet. That was new.

His motion sent Cassian barreling out the front door and into the dust of camp. I could hear them wrestle and was silently grateful my hands would not have to be the ones to give Cassian the pummeling he’d more than earned. But my attention focused solely on Morrigan who fell to the floor weeping in my arms. I held her and I held her and I held her not caring it wasn’t my body she wanted against her or that I was of no good use anymore.

All that mattered was that I do something, anything to help her.

 _Stay_ …

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I just-”

“Shh,” I said not quite sure who she was apologizing too. I stroked her hair and rocked her back and forth until the tears slowed and she was coherent enough to talk.

She pulled her head back from my chest where a wet stain had erupted against the fabric of my shirt. “Azriel,” she said and her eyes were red and glossy over the deep browns and golds I had come to love so much. But it was the sound of her name broke on her lips that undid me. “I couldn’t find another way. I only wanted to _c-choose_.” It was a choke on her lips, a dying prayer in her heart.

And I knew I could never hate her for wanting perhaps the most basic human right. Her eyes drained me of all that grief threatening to burn me alive. If anything, her determination to own her life - consequences be damned - only made me love her more.

“I know, Morrigan,” I said, nodding at her. Whether her apologies were for me or not, I accepted them all so she could feel like at least someone had listened. If she needed to send messages out into the world when no one was listening, I would be her vessel to receive them always. Whatever she needed me to be even if I couldn’t be what she wanted.

Mistake or no, Morrigan had risked everything of herself to exist as she saw fit. Her determination, her will, her strength and sense of self-worth even having grown up in a world that damned her, guaranteed I could never merit her mind, body, and soul. I was base. A bastard. A sword. A shadow. She was the sun. The sky. A light. Life itself.

I pulled her back against my chest wondering if this was the last time I’d ever see her, touch her. How I would miss those mornings flying with her cradled against me, her voice ringing with joy in my ear. “I know.” I said it over and over again and when I looked up, Rhysand’s mother was looking at us with a look on her face I couldn’t quite place. Like she saw us, knew how our hearts were bleeding.

I hung on to her until Rhysand came back bruised and bloody, but not have as bad as Cassian. The fighter didn’t even pick himself up out of the mud by the time Rhysand was through with him. I’m not sure he even used magic to beat him down.

Rhysand took Morrigan back to the Hewn City two days later as promised and stayed with her. He didn’t come back until almost a week later when he ran frantically into the cabin and found me waiting for him, my blade already strapped to my back. The darkness peeled off of him ripe with fear.

“Will you go?” he asked me without preamble.

“To the ends of the earth,” I said.

That was the first bad day.

xx


End file.
